Of Words or Steve Rogers' Swear Jar
by pbw
Summary: "What is this?" he said as he picked up the hand-written note next to it. "Swear jar," he reads. "What is a swear jar?" Steve groaned, covering his face in his hands. "Seriously? I'm never gonna live this down."


Nothing is mine. Nothing has been beta read. If you see something wonky, please let me know.

It appeared one day after the whole Ultron mess. It is a large mason jar, vintage from the looks of it and clean of any residue. It smells faintly of lavender but nothing else. At first no one notices the jar.

The team acquired several new members. "We're the A-Team!" crows Tony. Everyone else just rolled their eyes. They are sitting around the mostly cleaned up common room, when Pietro notices the jar sitting innocently on the countertop.

"What is this?" he said as he picked up the hand-written note next to it. "Swear jar," he reads. "What is a swear jar?"

Steve groaned, covering his face in his hands. "Seriously? I'm never gonna live this down."

Tony smirked while Natasha laughed out loud. "A swear jar, Pietro, is a thing - in this case a jar - where people must put money in every time they use a swear word. So, every swear word that one utters, that person must put in a dollar or something into the jar. It's supposed to help stop the person from swearing."

"Does it work?" Pietro asked, eyes turning a bit mischevious.

She shrugged. "Only one way to find out, huh?"

Everyone swears that they didn't place the jar there. FRIDAY wouldn't tell anyone. Not even Tony Stark, her creator. The video feeds of the room, strangely enough, were conveniently blurry around the time the jar showed up.

All Tony could see was a...shape. A dark, blurry shape and no matter what Tony did to enhance the image, the shape remained blurry.

"I find it troubling that FRIDAY won't tell me who put the fucking jar here," Tony ranted.

"That's another five for the jar," everyone says almost in unison. They looked up from their various activities and smiled. They knew it would drive Tony crazy.

"Oh, shut up," he replies before slipping a five dollar bill into the jar. "Assholes," he mutters.

"Ahem," comes a voice from above.

"I hate you," Tony says and stuffs another five dollars into the jar.

"Thank you, Tony," Pepper says brightly.

Tony contemplated flipping her of. In lieu of that, he added another bill to the jar and stalked off while she laughed.

The next few weeks more and more money is added. Coins start to make an appearance as well, settling to the bottom of the pristine mason jar.

Bruce dumps a few hundred dollars after a particularly trying day in the lab with Tony. Tony follows the beleaguered scientist as Bruce gives him a look before walking away to his gardens on his floor.

"I didn't mean it," shouted Tony. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuck." He sighed, pulling out his wallet and dumping his money into the jar and racing after his friend.

Natasha and Clint add to the ever growing pile after an almost disastrous mission ferreting out an elusive HYRDA base. Bruised and bloody they leaned against the counter and looked at the jar. Bemused, Nat pulled out a neater stack of bills and handed it to Clint.

"For the kids," she said winking and strolled off.

Clint shook his head before heading to the bank. As he did, he pulled out his phone to call his wife.

"Hi Honey," he murmured softly.

Tony's contribution was daily and automatic. Everyone smiles, shaking their heads.

Steve sheepishly added a some money every few weeks.

"Steve, most people don't consider damn a swear word," Sam said exasperated.

Steve just raised his eyebrow, giving Sam a look.

"Okay, okay. Fine. You damn boy scout," he said and added money in. "I can't believe you sometimes."

Steve just smiled benignly.

Thor added gold. He didn't necessarily have paper money nor did he actually swear outright. But he did appreciate the idea of the jar and thus added gold to it. "But", he told Simmons one day, "Asgardian cursing can be quite colorful." Simmons just smiled dazzled in Thor's presence as he ate a pop tart.

Fitz added money to the jar on the days he wasn't feeling particularly talkative. No one comments or approaches him when his mood plummets like this.

Pietro and Wanda come in one day after a hard day of training. Talking in their native language, their voices rising as Wanda threw her hands around expressing her anger while Pietro matched her movement for movement.

Trip and Skye looked up from their books to watch the show.

"I wonder what they're saying," Skye said softly.

"I don't know," Trip replied. "But I can say that anger on Wanda looks damn good." Skye swatted him.

"What?!"

"Swear jar," Skye said giving Trip a severe look.

"Oh, right," Trip replied. He stood up to place his money in the jar, avoiding the bickering twins.

Wanda and Pietro ignored him as they continued to argue loudly. Trip shrugged as he sat down beside Skye.

"What are they saying?" Skye wondered again.

"I believe you do not want to know that," Vision said floating above them. "It's very...colorful," he went on, a small smile cracked his face as he watched them.

Trip looked at him in question.

"You were correct in your assumption," Vision said.

"What assumption?"

"That Wanda looks good angry," he said and floated away.

Wanda and PIetro's conversation abruptly stopped while Trip and Skye looked at each other.

"What just happened?" Skye whispered, her eyes wide. Trip could only shrug.

"Hey! You two better be putting money in that jar!" Trip said to the twins.

Darcy rounded up Jane, Bruce, Fitz, and Simmons, giving them all a very hard glare. Meekly they each placed money in the jar trying to appease her.

"Don't let me catch you doing that again!" Darcy sternly told them before smartly turning and walking away from "her" group of scientists.

"Yes, Darcy," they all said abjectly and hurried back to their labs.

Pepper wanted to kill Tony today. Scratch that, Pepper wanted to kill Tony _every single day._ Huffing, she pulled out her wallet and placed money in the jar. Maria followed Pepper closely and pulled out her wallet. The two women looked at each other. Sighing, both women screamed out 'Tony' before going to find the exasperating man.

Melinda, Coulson noted, didn't swear so much as throw more force than necessary into punches. Melinda hadn't fully forgiven Phil for the _stunt_ he pulled on her. Phil was holding the punching bag for Melinda as she trained and by the end of her session, Phil knew he was going to have some very rough looking bruises.

"I'm sorry May," Coulson said as she placed money into the swear jar.

May just nodded. "You still have a lot of explaining to do."

"Um, guys, what are we going to do with this jar," Skye asked. No room was left for her to put her money in.

"Good question," Coulson said. "Any thoughts?"

"We could just donate it," Sam said as the others started to brainstorm for organizations and ideas. "Count up the money and tell us how much is in it."

"Fourteen thousand, three hundred, ninety-two dollars and seventy-five cents," FRIDAY said.

A stunned silence hit them all.

"That's all?" muttered Tony.

All at once a cacophony broke loose as people started talking over each other, each with increasing ferocity of language. Pepper pulled out a second and third jar as they all started to fill it with money.

Matt Murdock of Nelson and Murdock sat in a stunned silence as Pepper Potts handed him the check. Matt swallowed several times and cleared his throat before speaking.

"Ms. Potts - " he began.

"Please, call me Pepper," she said and smiled.

"She just smiled," Foggy whispered. He sat just as bugged-eyed as Matt listening to one Ms. Virginia Potts, CEO of Stark Industries, perhaps one of _the most powerful women in the world_ , and just happened to be the girlfriend of Tony Stark, tell her tale of why she was donating an insane amount of money to two lawyers in Hell's Kitchen.

"Pepper," Matt amended, "you do realize that we're just lawyers. We're no charitable organization or anything like it."

"Yes, I understand," she said, humor lacing her voice, "but I also know that you two are the most honest and respected lawyers here in Hell's Kitchen. If anyone knew of any organizations or could distribute this money fairly it would be the two of you."

Foggy glanced at Matt and couldn't believe his eyes. Matt Murdock, charming and smooth motherfucker (Damn, that's one for the swear jar!) was stunned speechless and rapidly turning red. "Well, now that you mention it," Foggy said, stepping in, "there's this hospital, Metro-General that could probably use this money."

Skye smiled and carefully placed another larger mason jar on the counter. "Okay, FRIDAY, go ahead and make me blurry."

Thanks for reading! :)


End file.
